


restless soul, lie down

by watery_sun



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Healing, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romance, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:40:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29601882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watery_sun/pseuds/watery_sun
Summary: You know, rationally, that your life is more than a string of incremental failures. But until the day you believe it, you'll just have to keep going.modern!AU
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 64





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A little modern AU that's been knocking around in my drafts for some time now. I'll flesh it out as I have time.

You first see her at your friend’s party. You only heard about it after a chain of text messages that you’ll never admit you’ve been waiting for. 

_You doing anything tomorrow night?_ is how Cat starts things, and you wince. You physically turn away from your desk, where seven - no, it’s ten now - books are stacked haphazardly, all in wildly different and forgotten states. You correct yourself because you counted them two days ago. No, you haven't put them away since then.

But really, _are_ you doing anything? Other than falling asleep at four in the evening on a Sunday. The kindness, the fact that Cat would presume that you could have a conflict, looms sharp in your mind. You type out a reply.

 _Nope_.

You’ve drawn and scratched out three moths in your sketchbook by the time your phone _dings_ again.

_Great. Interested in not being a hermit for one night?_

_Psshh_. You lean back in your chair, stack one socked foot up onto your desk, and then the other. A loose sheet of paper flutters to the floor, and guilt twinges in your gut.

 _I guess_.

Guessing is pretty much the only thing you’ve done lately, after all. Why stop now?

***

The ceiling is low and the music is loud and you ease yourself through the mishmash of bodies. Someone - Jesse? - has produced a joint, and you prod him for his uncharacteristically lax attitude on a work night. He scoffs - _W_ _hen have I ever missed a deadline?_ \- but lets you take a hit anyways.

You lean back into the counter, feeling it bite into your low back, and let your eyes drift closed as you exhale. Jesse is firm warmth at your side, and the closeness of the party fades away for a moment.

Eventually it fades back, and you sway to the dull thrum of music, snake one arm around Cat’s shoulders and hum. Someone prods you in the ribs and there’s Abby, sliding by you, surprisingly agile as always.

“Glad to see you could make it!” she says, and before you can gather a reply she’s slipped down the hallway, calling Nora’s name. You can’t decide if it’s another dig. 

Later, someone’s pulled you into a half-lit bedroom, taken off your sweatshirt. Sat you on the floor. You were getting too warm, anyways.

Hah, what were you expecting? _Action?_ A random (but beautifully, stunningly fated) sexual encounter with a stranger? This is very, very high on the list of Things That Don’t Happen to You. But you _do_ get your head stuck in the collar of your sweatshirt with surprising frequency.

You bump into the person sitting next to you as you reach for another card. Someone’s hazy laugh worms its way into one ear, out the other. The shot you took earlier sits low and warm in your gut, easing out to your extremities. You're still pretty sober, but fuzzily so. Two rounds of cards later and your patience runs out, and you’ve wound your way back to the kitchen.

And there she is.

You know it’s stupid, it’s just your mind playing tricks - but there’s a spotlight on her. There must be, in how her dark hair turns brown, the ends almost a deep gold. How her eyes are liquid pools, crinkling with her laughter. Several bracelets dance along her wrists, sparkling as she gestures - talking with her hands. She's soft in an unseasonable dark sweater and jeans, and her hair is pulled back haphazardly, artful.

You recognize her story. It’s about you.

***

Okay, so it’s not the _first_ time you’ve seen her. It’s not even the fifth time, or the tenth. But you’re not quite ready to look that in the eye right now, are you?

You just wait for her to tie off the thread of her story. Wait for her to see you, for her eyes to light up. Let yours drift closed as she wraps her arms around you, breathes you in. 

_I missed you so much._

***

You’re not a dreamy thing anymore, not like how you used to be.

Your books keep calling to you, the same as your guitar. Your response - to that part of yourself that just keeps _trying_ \- is always the same. _Ne_ _xt time_. _Next time. Next time._

It’s bothersome - like a key on your laptop keyboard that was pried loose, and every time you use it now you have to press twice, three times to get the machine to register your action. Eventually it becomes a habit, a necessary burden just to function. Something annoying - an itch or a scratch, that fades into a background of already-innumerable itches and scratches.

Eventually, you don’t even think about it anymore.

***

The party is barely dwindling when she asks you for a ride home. _I gotta make a phone call_ , she says over the din. _My mother and sister, you know_ -

You’re nodding already, watching her chew on her bottom lip, and then you remember you can be sly with her. You shrug. _I mean, I guess I’m heading in that direction_. 

She smirks. _Come on, stupid_.

The night air buzzes, thick and warm. She climbs in the passenger side of your car and immediately rolls down her window. You coast out of the neighborhood and pick up speed, letting the carpet of the night sky wash over you. In the distance, the city thrums, a dull orange that sucks the light from the stars.

You keep the radio volume low, but catch her knowing smile anyways. _I see your tastes haven’t changed_.

Warmth blooms in your sternum. _I told you I was born in the wrong decade_.

In your periphery, she chuckles, tips her head back and sighs. You come up to a stop sign, and the streetlight paints the contours of her throat in a soft yellow.

You hate to disturb her peace, but you need to know. _When are you heading back?_

For the first time all night, she stiffens. Crosses her arms, wraps herself up.

 _I’m not_.

Her voice wavers at the end, and you hear her swallow. You glance away from the road, back at her. Again. And again.

_Did something happen?_

A long sigh. She slouches in her seat, and you suppress the urge to reach over and touch her shoulder. 

It’s only a moment, though, and then she’s straightened up again. _Tell you what_ , she says. _Let’s get dinner tomorrow, and I’ll tell you all about it_.

You think of the pile of books on your desk, your unmade bed. The three missed calls on your phone, all from a 307 area code.

 _I’ll do you one better_ , you say, as you roll up to another stop sign. _I’ll make you dinner_.

In the flickering streetlight, you see her smile. _Perfect. I still haven't cooked for the week_.

In too-little time, you’re on her street. She makes frustrated little sounds about her roommates, and you chuckle as you shift into park. _My futon is always available_. 

She rolls her eyes. _You mean the one you keep in your storage unit?_

_Of course._

She’s gathered her things when she turns around, and you jump, because you’ve already slipped into departure mode - boxed up all your interactions with her so that you don’t get too clingy when she says goodbye.

She speaks - “Ellie” - and it’s like you’ve come up for air, the way your name sounds in her mouth. You look up, and her eyes are soft.

“Yeah?”

Her hand is warm on your wrist, thumb running along your knuckles. You look down - her hand is so small in yours. “I really did miss you.”

Part of you jolts then, because it feels too _much_ \- like Another Thing That Doesn’t Happen to You. But then she’s smiling again, bright and true, and you exhale. 

“I missed you too.” 

She walks away. The warmth in your chest is still there, lingering and flickering, and you expect it to fade. But it only grows, gains coherence as she fiddles with her keys, unlocks her front door. 

She looks back, waves, and the thing in your chest thrums. You don’t even hear her screen door snap closed, or the engine turn over as you start your car. That warmth wraps itself around your heart, crawls up your throat - and before you know it, you’re smiling. Grinning, even.

The warm night air caresses your face, picks at the strands of your hair. For once, you don't wrap yourself up in the next day's anxieties, in your inevitable failures. For once, you press pause.

You’re in love.


	2. déjà vu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some content notes: There's a brief mention of a character vomiting early in the second section of this chapter.

It’s a small thing, for you to fall in love.

It’s glancing. Like you’re a fish that’s jumped out of its safe harbor for a prettier puddle, only for that puddle to dry up. You flop and gasp and wonder why you made the leap. 

Love rockets into you, ricochets off and takes part of you with it. Even your own self-destruction must have its pound of flesh.

Because, sure, you’ve been in love before. You’ve tasted its sweet tang and felt its blooming warmth. And you’ve been loved - you’ve been wrapped in its caring embrace and its sturdy guidance.

And on the one hand, you would not be here, if not for love.

But on the other hand, if not for love, you would not be here.

***

The first time you see her - the _real_ first time - you’re thoroughly buzzed from the pregaming that you started too early in Jesse’s dorm room.

 _Because you’re nervous,_ he supplies. 

_Not nervous_ , you retort as you stumble over your tied shoelaces - you’re just _tired_ from the long-ass trip you made to get here from Jackson; tired because of the night air, still drenched in summer’s sweet, overgrown warmth.

 _Uh-huh_ , he says, and his smile is audible. There’s light at your back as you walk - cars drift through campus, headlights soft and fuzzy. _Bet all those shots are really doing something for your stamina_.

Irritation flares in your gut, and you turn to reply - because, inside, you know that what really drives you is fear; and maybe, if you snap back hard enough, you’ll drive that fear down beneath the bed of your mind where it will stay and cower until _after_ you’ve met Jesse’s friends, and shot the shit with them, and watched them take in your loose flannel and makeup-free face and shrug their shoulders and go on with their lives and -

And you vomit right onto the grass.

 _Okay, fuck this_ , comes Jesse’s immediate reply, and his face - half-lit by a streetlight - fades into your view. _Come on, dude_. He’s lifting you, with much more ease than you expect, until you’re half-leaning on him. _Do_ not _breathe on me, dumbass. I told you to slow down with that tequila_ -

You protest, but as it turns out you’re not quite fit for walking - which you discover soon enough, as you demand that Jesse let go of you. Then the lawn - damp, glittering like it's covered in diamonds - rushes up to meet you again. Rude.

Jesse gets you up, and you imagine him rolling his eyes. Now he’s making noises about walking you to a friend’s place, letting you sleep it off; all you can do is follow, watching the concrete waver under your feet -

Some time passes, and then there’s loud _rap_ on a window. The noise barges into your near-blacked-out mind, startles you; then there’s urgent speaking, raised and questioning tones and finally acquiescence; and finally you’re indoors, with Jesse arranging your limbs on something soft, as you float away on a fuzzy haze.

More chatter, the blurred shape of a taller person talking to someone much shorter than them. Shortstack is gesturing animatedly, but not angrily, from what you can tell. A low voice - maybe that’s Jesse - and then the steady resolution of a conversation ending. 

Then footsteps, drifting away. You let the dredges of your wakefulness go with them.

Later, there’s warm pressure on your shoulder and a face swims into view - dark eyes, dark hair. There’s a voice attached to this face, soft and unassuming.

_Hey. I brought you some water._

You mumble sounds of...some kind, and then you’re gone again.

You come to next with a harsh, wailing sound worming its way into your ear. You groan and turn your head, trying to block it out - but it stabs into your skull along the contours of a headache, and you wince now and gasp -

“Hey! Hey, get up!”

“What -” Someone’s shaking your shoulders and the din crashes into you now, of stumbling feet and raised voices -

“Come on, come on -” There’s a hand in yours, tugging, insistent. Somehow, you’ve left your feet behind, but they catch up anyways; and you’re stumbling, as the blaring alarm bears down on you, making you shake and trip -

“Hey.” Firm warmth around your waist. “Hey, you with me?” You look down now and, oh, there’s an actual _person_ helping you along, with wide brown eyes and concern-wrinkled brows - 

You somehow find it in yourself to nod, and then you’re back in the present, and every one of your senses is assaulted by this fucking ringing that reaches from your ears right down to your _bones_ -

In the midst of all this chaos, it registers in your mind like an easy thing - the scent of chamomile, washing over you, seeping into your lungs.

And then you’re outside, and the night air hits you like a blast of cold water. You drink it down like you’re dying of thirst, and the world clears a little. 

“I swear,” comes a voice from somewhere near your left ear, “the fucking smoke detectors they put in those kitchens are the most sensitive shit. You know the engineering lab? Some newbie just destroyed his circuit board during practicals this week, whole thing was fucking on _fire_. And _nothing_ went off. Not a peep.” There’s some chatter in response, laughter.

Without warning, there’s another blaring wail that registers on the horizon of your mind. The fire department arrives in a rush of loud engines and firm orders, and the hand in yours tugs you backwards to make space. 

“I don’t think this is what Jesse meant by getting you back on your feet,” says the voice again, and you blink several times, focus. Wide, brown eyes again; but a smooth brow, face open, like a bright light. There’s a blur of motion in your periphery - she’s waving at you, even though you must be a foot apart. “I’m Dina.”

You blink again. 

“I’d shake your hand, but…” She glances down, chuckles, and lets go of your fingers. They’re still warm where she touched you.

“Ellie,” you manage, glancing down at the ground. Up again. “Thanks for the save.” She shrugs like it’s nothing, and you watch the booted and geared-up firemen tromp into the dorm. You feel yourself swaying on your axis, and focus on staying upright. “Sorry I just got...uh...dumped on you like that.”

“Rough night?” There’s a smile written into every word that comes out of her mouth. You shrug, chuckle a little. 

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Mhm.”

The fire department deems it safe to enter the building again, but not before an RA stalks out of the dorm with a charred, still-smoking cooking pot in hand. It stinks of melted processed cheese and has something charred to its bottom. The RA brandishes it as if it will summon the guilty party forth.

You watch Dina raise her eyebrows, curse into her palm, and hide her smile behind her fingers. The flashing lights from the fire truck paint her skin red.

***

You love how charcoal softens in your hands, smears onto paper like something alive. You drag your thumb through a streak of dark and it softens, bleeds out.

Your drawing class is where you feel most at home, more so than in programming or physics. You like your problem sets and projects, but they’re a single step on a long, winding path to some kind of obligated employment. 

Art is in the here and the now, requiring a presence of mind that you’re constantly in fear of losing. 

The first week, your whole class sits in a circle of easels, around a pile of objects in the center of the room - chairs and fabric and sometimes a person, clothed or otherwise.

It is, in your opinion, a perfect center of the universe. It deserves all your focus, and that is what you give.

When you fade out of your drawing haze enough to focus on what’s around you, you hone in on the student to which you sit closest. She’s tall, willowy, with brown skin and a smudge of red paint on her blue plaid shirt. There’s a casual slope to her shoulders, a comfortable ease with which she holds her paintbrush. On the easel in front of her, you see a bright splash of color and movement and thick, dark lines. 

She catches you staring, because of course she does. You blink, look down.

 _Riley_ is how she introduces herself, hand outstretched. The painting on her easel, she tells you, is a piece of concept art for a graphic novel she’s working on. 

It’s so unlike anything you’ve ever created that you can’t resist telling her, directly, that you want to know more. Maybe you haven’t figured out how to make many friends yet, but it’s beyond relieving to find another person with a vein of creativity running through them.

When you enter her dorm room a few days later, the first thing you see is a stack of books on her desk. _English major_ , she says, noting your glance and chuckling. _Er, trying to be_.

You pivot to her art soon enough. She produces swatches, thumbnails, quick smatterings of ideas that she’s jotted down in any free second she can. You recognize her pragmatism, how she fights for her own time at any chance she gets.

Her characters are just contours at this point, but compelling all the same: survivors, underdogs. A thrum of recognition pulses in you.

For weeks, you’ve been planning a tattoo - she’s the first person you tell, even though your ideas are still natal at best. “Let’s see it, then,” she says, and you flip open your sketchbook nervously. Something in your chest flutters when she reacts with awe and praise.

“We could totally get this done soon, if you wanna,” she says later, pen in hand, and your eyebrows fly upwards. “I know someone apprenticing at a place downtown who does _incredible_ linework.”

Three weeks later, just as fall begins to seep in on a crisp breeze, you find yourself in a tattoo shop that’s walking distance from campus. A slight woman with dark hair and more ink than skin runs a razor gently along your right forearm. 

Riley leans over from where she’s seated next to you, just as the woman starts to place the stencil along your arm. “That’s gorgeous,” she says, and you scoff.

“You only say that because half of it was _your_ idea.”

Riley shrugs, but doesn’t deny a thing. “And the lineart only exists because of Cat,” she adds. “So, equal contributions all around, eh, ladies?”

You roll your eyes, then hiss - the bite of the needle buzzes into your skin, all the way down to your bones.

“Isn’t it funny _,_ ” Cat says as she wipes at your skin. “The second we up and leave and go somewhere new, we want to put something permanent on ourselves.” She leans away to check over her supplies, and you angle your arm, see how the new ink shines in the light. 

Riley folds her arms behind her head, leans back in her chair. “No permanence is ours,” she quotes absently, staring at the ceiling. She’s backlit now, outline fuzzy. “We are a wave that flows to fit whatever form it finds: through night or day, cathedral or the cave we pass forever, craving form that binds.”

Cat leans over your arm again, and the buzzing pain makes the light around Riley seem sharper. Later, you fill a whole page in your sketchbook with just that image of her - easy and casual, with flames at her back.

***

With the exception of her engineering textbooks, stacked neatly on her desk - and abruptly, you think of your own haphazard pile on your floor, fallen halfway under your bed - Dina’s dorm room is all softness. There are twinkle lights that glow near her ceiling, bean bag chairs that sag in the corner, and overly soft pillows and blankets on her bed that make you want to close your eyes and drift away.

It’s particularly difficult to resist doing so in the middle of one of Dina’s bottomless stories. You have been on campus just as much as her, but somehow she has reached into the social pool far deeper than you could dream, pulling forth secrets and anecdotes like lost treasures. She shares these with you without question, for which you are grateful - you’d rather examine the intricacy of social rituals and relationships from the safety of her room, thank you very much. 

Tension only leeches into your limbs when she steers the conversation towards your respective personal lives. You skate through your recollections, trying to make it all look easy.

One night, she leans back against the wall that runs along the side of her bed, and simultaneously lifts her sweater and tugs her jeans down just enough to reveal a slip of skin. She’s golden in the low light, and then you see the mottled tissue of her scar, like an accent on her hip bone.

You swallow, and lean back onto her pillows while she rolls her eyes at herself for a skateboard mishap that happened to her when she was twelve. When she raises her eyebrows at you in a silent _your turn_ , you hold up a finger, keeping her attention. 

You’ve stripped off your plaid overshirt already, and your t-shirt bunches in your hands as you lift it and twist your torso to the side. A breeze drifts in through her open window, and you shiver slightly.

_What the fuck is that?_

You can’t stop the grin and scoff that come to you. You know what she’s taking in, after all - the whorl of jagged scar tissue, a whirlpool of old trauma stamped against your ribcage.

 _Rollerblading_ , you say through your smile. The word sours in your throat. _Happened when I was eight. Was going too fast, fell into a fucking woodpile_. She hisses, and her sympathy is like a balm over the old, sharp memory that you’ve dragged up. You let your shirt fall.

The two of you stay up so late that it becomes early. You blow smoke rings as the sun rises above the quad, smile at the sweet tang of spring. It’s your favorite season, you tell Dina.

She lifts her head, and on her cheek you see the impression from a wrinkle in her blanket. Her hair is frizzy, disordered, but her eyes are bright.

“Why’s that?” she says, voice thick and scratchy.

You stretch, languid and relaxed, and the answer comes easy - falls out of your mouth like it’s been waiting for this moment all year.

“Rebirth.”

***

Your first year has passed in a haze. 

You complete assignments, begrudged; ignore phone calls, exasperated. You count the days to summer, and then try not to. In between snowball fights, you trade plot points with Riley for her graphic novel. You fall asleep in Dina’s bed when you’re too high to move, or too tired to walk across campus to your dorm; you wake up just hours later, with her curled beside you, and trace the stars that glitter outside her window. You stay up too late with Jesse, then get up too early to go run with him, ignoring his insistence that the best cure for a hangover is crisp, fresh air. 

Your body aches; your mind is heavy, inundated; the world is so, so large and so, so small.

You think, perhaps, that you are finally becoming something.

***

Summer is rocketing towards you before you know it, on the heels of a crisp spring. You have your plans nailed down: a few months assisting out at your uncle’s ranch, and then back on campus early to start research for your advisor in the physics department. 

You scraped into that position by the skin of your teeth, technically submitting your application after the deadline had passed - but maybe your advisor took pity on you, saw something loose and floating in you that needed to be tied down. You left your laptop in your dorm room tonight, updating your version of MATLAB. 

Now, Dina paces in her room, ignoring the quesadilla that you snagged for her from the dining hall. 

“You need to eat,” you murmur around a joint as you watch her wring her hands and tug on the hem of her shirt. She’s been soundly rejected from every internship she’s applied to, much to your chagrin. Dina is brilliant. She doesn’t need some fucking government internship to tell her that. 

Still, she fiddles with the bracelet on her right wrist, unclasping and re-clasping it. Tries to take deep breaths, then gives up and opts for pinching the bridge of her nose with one hand.

One of her friends, seated in one of the bean bag chairs, asks her about going home. You see Dina tense up, fingers digging just so into the flesh of her forearms as she shakes her head. Finally, she sits down on the edge of her bed, and you try again, nudging the food towards her. 

As you watch her eat, you think - absurdly - that you would kill to see her smile.

A week later, a miracle occurs - Jesse sets her up with a gig out in California, where his brother’s boyfriend’s uncle’s landlord needs some electrical work done. You give up on trying to keep this strange organizational tree straight in your head in favor of memorizing the look of Dina’s easy relief. This, too, finds a home in your sketchbook.

***

The first thing you do when you get to Jackson, after hugging your aunt and uncle, is to locate the calendar on the fridge. You flip forward several months and locate a red X that sits in the sea of blank squares that is August.

Your stomach drops, and when you tell Tommy that’s a week earlier than what you were told, he raises his hands placatingly.

 _Did he put you up to this?_ An edge of anger rises in the back of your throat.

 _Now, that’s just a mistake_ , he says firmly. _We must’ve gotten our wires crossed. Look, maybe this won’t be that bad_ -

You won’t hear it. _What are you doing?_

That night, you grit your teeth and change your return flight. Then you flip back through your phone’s gallery, pausing over pictures: you and Dina, sunburned and sweaty at the end of a hike; you, Cat, and Riley, in front of a mirror placed as part of an installation exhibit in the school’s art museum.

You stare at these even as you lay horizontal in bed, with the lights off. You stare until your eyelids droop, until your grip weakens, until you no longer have the strength to resist the pull of sleep.

***

Summers in Jackson are high, brilliant blue skies and lush vegetation and a deep, hard sun that burns your skin even after you apply two layers of sunscreen. Your uncle’s ranch is all soft quietude that bleeds into raucous mornings with little warning, and soon you’re waking up at six in the morning on the dot. It’s not a rooster’s crow at dawn, but it’s fucking close enough.

You muck stalls and lift hay bales and scrub water tubs and scatter corn for chickens. On your better days, you relish the ache of physical activity as if it will take shape under your skin, turn you into a fully-realized thing. You fall asleep sore and wake up just the same, and imagine the cords of your muscles wrapping you in worth.

Riley emails you new pages of her graphic novel, mockups with light and shadow blocked in, with the flow of movement demarcated by fat arrows and notes in her precise hand. You stay by your laptop as they load via your uncle’s shitty internet; every time a new slice of image appears, you rake your gaze over it and try to guess what she’s created this time. Nothing ever compares to the final image that renders on your screen.

 _This is sick,_ you write back. _Dr. Starr kicks so much ass_.

_Fuck yeah. Give me your address and I’ll send you a copy!_

_No way, you’re going to print already??_

_Nah, but I thought you’d wanna hold the real thing in your hands. Keep you company out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere._

You scoff. _Fuck you. I’ll have you know that I’ve only named the cows so far_.

 _Uh huh, keep telling yourself that_.

When a postcard arrives from Boston with Riley’s flowing script on it, you tack it up on the corkboard beside your bed.

***

Dina texts often, but service is spotty enough that her messages rush in at unpredictable times. A flutter of dings emanate from your pocket when you’re down at the feed store, or loading hay bales into the truck, or now, when you’re leaning against the kitchen counter with a sweating glass of water pressed to your forehead.

In the window above the sink, the glass shines sharp and cold in the darkness, even this late into summer. You take a long pull of water and set down the empty cup. 

Despite the ungodly hour, there’s a small, bright ball of excitement in your gut as you unlock your phone. You try not to look at it too closely. 

It’s a selfie of Dina, work goggles on, flashing a thumbs-up sign. Next to her is a smoldering pile of something mechanical, judging by the harsh angles and wires sticking out of the mess at random. In the background is a blur barely in the shape of a person, but you make out the grizzled beard and deep frown of who you assume must be Eugene.

 _Think he’ll invite me back next summer?_ reads the accompanying text. You scoff, roll your eyes.

 _Not with that attitude he won’t_ you type back. Your thumb hovers over the send button, as your brain scrambles through different scenarios - should you be nicer? Snarkier? Tell her she looks good with that dark smudge on her cheek, that even with those goggles on you can still see the liquid depth of her eyes?

You stop yourself, press send anyways. You wait for a timestamp to appear above your message, indicating that it’s been sent. You tell yourself not to count the seconds.

A minute and a half later, you groan impatiently, shove your phone in your pocket, turn on your heel, and slink back down the hallway to your bedroom. 

Before you slip back into unconsciousness, you make yourself remember the date marked with a red X. You repeat it three times to yourself, so that you’re certain you won’t forget.

***

That day arrives, and you crawl into consciousness in its early, overtired hours. Your packed bags are by the front door. Tommy, to his credit, doesn’t try to stop you. He does hug you before you leave, in that stilted, awkward way of his. Pushes a tupperware into your free hand.

 _Maria wants to make sure you’re eating_.

You nod, look up into his eyes - blue, rimmed by the contours of age. You don’t have the heart to tell him that you’ll probably have to throw the food out before you go through airport security.

When you get to the airport, the sky is just starting to lighten in the east. By the time your plane picks up speed down the runway and eases into the sky, there’s a nimbus of pinks and oranges bleeding across the horizon. Snug in your seat, you press your forehead against the double-paned window and watch Wyoming drop away beneath you - now nothing but a smudge under your thumb.

 _There but for the grace of God_ , you mutter to yourself.

***

Oh, here you are. Sun already fully up in the sky, tipping over into the afternoon. 

You’d better go on that run soon, or else you won’t have time to make your apartment look decent for Dina. We can't live in our pasts all the time, now, can we?


	3. perturbations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: i'm gonna write something M-rated for once
> 
> three chapters later -
> 
> me: so that was a lie

You run until your chest heaves - until the impact of concrete on the balls of your feet curls through your arches, up around your shins. Until the sound of blood rushing in your ears drowns out your music; until the world dissolves into blurs of greens, and browns, and blues -

Your phone rings.

You slip on the gravel underfoot and skid to a halt. The world comes crashing back, in the familiar sequence of a phone number with a 307 area code.

You hold your thumb down on the red hang-up symbol and swipe up. Your music picks up again, and Kate Bush wails in your ear.

_It doesn’t hurt me_

_Do you want to feel how it feels?_

_***_

Dina knocks just as you’re sprinkling chopped cilantro over the second plate of pad thai. You set it down at your dinner table and stride for the door, the heels of your dress shoes clicking on the hardwood. 

The moment there’s no barrier between the two of you, she leaps into your arms, warm and solid and smelling like chamomile. “Hi,” you breathe into her hair, grinning.

“Hey, stranger,” she murmurs warmly against your neck. Her fingers dance over your shirt collar, smoothing and straightening the fabric. “What’d you make for me?”

You pull back and rub your nose against hers - “Your favorite” - and unwind your arms from around her body, grasping her hands to pull her further into the kitchen.

Forget the dinner table - she insists you both eat on the couch, pressed up against each other, and it’s not long before she’s leaning firmly into your side, running one finger along the leaves of your tattoo. 

“I missed you so much,” she sighs in that same warm voice from the party, dripping with love. She places the whole flat of her palm against the crook of your inner arm, where the moth splays against your skin. “Come here -"

***

You’re spooning chicken alfredo into bowls just as your phone buzzes with a happy reminder - _Hey El, I’m outside :)_

She saunters in once you open the door, runs one finger under your tie, pulls you close -

“Did you miss me?” she breathes, her lips ghosting against yours. She cups the back of your head with her fingertips, coaxing you closer until her dark, liquid eyes fill your vision,- until the warmth of her body is all that you feel, sliding underneath you, pulling you on top of her -

***

You’re halfway through your carbonara when she softly hooks her socked feet around your ankle, and warmth pools in your gut - her eyes are dark embers, shining in the candlelight -

***

Fuck pasta. She takes you to your own bed, straddles you in the darkness. Sighs in your ear - “I missed you so much, Ellie” - and nudges you back, so she can slide down your body, down, down, down -

***

So, here’s the thing.

This is far from the first time that you’ve been in love with Dina. It’s far from the fifth, or even the tenth.

***

It first happens with so little fanfare that, when you look back later, you’ll wonder over and over if the moment was even real. 

After that summer in Jackson, you see Dina again and it’s like looking into a bright light, and you can’t stop the grin that grows on your face when she wraps her arms around you. Her hand lingers on your shoulder, your arm; she’s dusted with even more freckles from her summer in the sun. 

She grabs your _hand_ and you walk across the campus’s central lawn together, her grilling you on your break while you try to retain a semblance of functioning normalcy -

“Did you go home at all?” you ask, when you’re finished filling her in on your too-early mornings and the folds in your clothing where you’re _still_ finding hay - and you watch her shoulders slump minutely, watch her bite her lower lip.

“Nah,” she supplies. “Anyways, party at my place tonight?”

Dina’s “party” ends up being nothing more than the two of you, Jesse, and Riley lounging on her bed, her desk chair, and one of her bean bags, respectively. 

“So I can see it’s not beer, and I take a pull from it anyways,” Riley is saying. “And it must’ve been hard liquor or some shit, because I spat it out _everywhere_ , it was fucking _disgusting_ -”

Dina snorts into her hand, then leans back and tips her glass in Riley’s direction. “I’ll toast to that.”

Your months in the Wyoming summer have turned you into a bit of a lightweight, so your own drink sits forgotten on Dina’s bedside table. 

The night drags on, fuzzy and soft. Jesse excuses himself, much to your and Dina’s chagrin - “One of us has to be responsible, alright?” - and Riley follows, muttering something about a book she has to finish before her first class in the morning (and here your stomach flips slightly, at the summer reading you technically still haven’t completed yet). She tips an imaginary hat in your direction, and before she turns away, you think you see the ghost of a wink on her face.

You uncross your legs, settle back against one of Dina’s pillows, and watch her light a joint. She takes a drag, exhales out her open window, and passes to you. 

As you take a hit, you have to tamp down the little thrill that arcs in you at the knowledge that your lips are touching the same place where hers were, just moments ago.

“Can I ask you a question?” Dina murmurs in that soft, prying way of hers, and you glance up to see her eyes on you. You focus on exhaling through your nose, aiming for the open window as well.

“I dunno,” you reply, falling back to a jab. “Can you?”

A smile flits across her lips, and she swallows. The movement of her throat draws your eyes. She crosses her legs, leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees. 

“Scale of one to ten,” she hums, plucking the joint from your fingertips, “where one is, like, absolute _trash_ , and ten -” She exhales softly, smiles to herself, “is _life_ -changing -”

She takes another drag, and you raise an eyebrow. The light from her lamp is soft, haloing her head fuzzily.

“How would you rate that downtown sandwich shop for a date?”

You blink. “Uh…” The sandwich shop in question swims in your mind - a squat, crumbling little building just off the eastern edge of campus. 

Words stop up in your throat. Dina raises her eyebrows, and you have to say _something_ \- “I’ve never been there.”

Dina nods thoughtfully, as if she’s digesting your answer. She extends the joint back towards you. “Wanna check it out?”

You take the joint, and her fingers brush yours. You blink. “What are you doing?”

Dina sighs. “I’m -” batting her eyelashes? “- asking you to rate one of the local restaurants? With me?” A small smile grows on your features. “On a date?”

You can’t help it, because it’s just absurd - you scoff. “We aren’t even dating.”

“I know,” Dina says simply. She’s got a sly, relaxed look on her face. “So, wanna check it out with me? Tomorrow?” 

She’s fucking with you. She has to be fucking with you. You study the thought, lock it down into reality.

You both finish off the joint, go your respective ways. You wait for a text that you’re certain will come in the morning - _Hah, wasn’t that funny?_

Instead, she sends you a tentative time to meet, asks you if that works for your schedule. You wait for her outside her apartment around lunchtime, hands shoved in the pockets of your jacket.

_What a joke, right?_

She asks you about your day, plies you for little details while you walk. Fawns over a picture in your phone of a new painting you’re working on - a lonely, rickety farmhouse in a sea of golden grass.

 _Like that would ever happen_.

The sidewalk is crowded, and you squeeze against each other to avoid being jostled. You stumble, and she catches you around the waist, chuckles about you being too cute and lanky for your own good.

_Me, asking you out?_

In line at the sandwich shop, you lean into her, just a fraction of a shift in your weight. She doesn’t lean away.

 _Not in a million years_.

Later, as you’re picking roasted red peppers off of your turkey and brie, you catch her looking at you - really looking, like there’s something in you she hasn’t seen before.

“Something on my face?” you ask, deflecting under her warm, open gaze. She blinks, smiles, looks down - she’s _flustered_ , you realize, with a kick of warmth in your chest - and you smile too.

The sandwich shop gets a six, but the date - yes, an actual _date_ \- gets a ten. Her foot brushes your ankle under the table, and you’re so, so _lucky_.

It’s not just the sandwich shop, though - next, Dina drags you to a little comic store that’s tucked into a side street. After you kick yourself for never having found it before, you trawl the shelves, smiling as she chatters about her two cats back home.

On the walk back to campus, your hands brush, and you tangle your fingers together with hers. You squeeze her hand, and she squeezes back.

You kiss her for the first time two days later, at a bonfire out by the athletic fields. 

There are people milling about, and you’d usually be jumpy at their shadows wandering in and out of your periphery. But the fire blinds you, and deadens your hearing, so that there’s only her - curled against your side, hands out towards the fire. It’s not a cold night, but Dina is Dina - always seeking warmth. 

And there’s something about how the sparks play off her eyes, and how her skin glows a deep gold-orange and the shadows on her face are thrown into relief, that makes you want her - deeply, in a way that makes you vault over your old anxieties.

She smiles when you ask, bites her lower lip. Your fingers trace her jaw, and when she breathes a “Yes”, you feel like all the air has left your lungs.

You incline your head and lean in. When her mouth meets yours, she’s soft - softer than you expected - and there’s a flame curling in your gut, hotter than the bonfire. She’s warm and _real_ and wanting, and everything else fades away. There’s only the smell of woodsmoke, the pop and crackle of split logs, and her: her taste, her strength, and the way her blood runs hot, hot, hot under her skin.

***

Your dorm is closer, so she takes you to your own bed. The two of you trade kisses on the way, stumbling over each other and laughing. A breeze dips under your collar and you realize that you’re sweating, and you’re suddenly too conscious of your body - how lanky and angular it is, how clumsy you feel all the time.

She must be able to tell that you’re nervous, because she sits on the edge of your bed, takes your hand in hers, and asks you if you want some water.

You startle. “Shouldn’t...uh. Shouldn’t I be asking _you_ that?”

She just chuckles, shrugs. “There are no rules here, last I checked.”

Later, you’re kissing her, and letting your hands wander tentatively along her thighs, when she gently pushes you back. “Too fast?” you gasp, nerves buzzing in your chest.

But Dina - flushed, eyes wide and liquid and dark - shakes her head, toys with a lock of hair that’s fallen out of your bun. “Tell me what you want.”

Absurdly, you think of your slew of awkward first times: going over to a girl’s house and counting down the minutes until her parents came home, while her mouth moved down your always-mostly-clothed body; fumbling, stolen kisses behind turned backs and the long-held burden of a secret; opening your bedroom window just wide enough for a body to squeeze through, and only later realizing that you were far too cold to come, even after getting her off. You would wait for sleep, skin tingling, and wonder what real privacy tasted like.

And sure, you’ve tasted it more than a few times since then. But this - a door that locks; a bed that, at least for now, is yours; and her under you, beautiful and waiting; it’s such a relief that you almost don’t know who you are anymore. 

Your answer is simple - “I wanna make you feel good.”

It happens sooner than you could dream. She’s naked and then she’s wet on your fingers and then she’s reaching down between your bodies, guiding you inside her, fluttering around you. 

You move your hips with your hand, and she wraps her legs around your waist, and all the rest of the world falls away. There’s just you curling over her, stumbling and nervous; and her, trembling and spread open under you, cupping your face in her hands, eyes fixed on where your bodies are joined.

It’s all so much because you’re _inside_ her and she calls you _baby_ and you’re really not sure what to do with all this information, so you talk and talk. You tell her how beautiful she is, how much you want her, how amazing she feels around you -

Your hand starts to cramp and she has to touch herself to come, but she says your name anyways as her hips jerk up into your palm, as you kiss her forehead and the dip at her throat where her pulse pounds.

At this point someone bangs on the shared wall of your room, and you both collapse into giggles - you into her sweaty neck, and her back into your pillows, chest heaving, face alight with a smile.

***

You get another tattoo. This one, wrapping around your right bicep, is of a cloud chamber, criss-crossed by the tracks of subatomic particles. Some of them look like planetary orbits, and something thrums in you at the knowledge that the largest and smallest things in the universe follow the same paths.

After it heals, Dina traces the ink with a finger like she’s transfixed. “All these tiny things that we can barely see,” she murmurs, smiling softly. “How do they add up to so much more?”

***

You stumble out of your quantum mechanics final with equations flickering on the backs of your eyelids, your brain still firing in problem-solving mode. On autopilot, you find your way to Dina’s dorm, curl up in her bed, and try to let go of the residual anxiety that clings to you like sludge.

You wake up to her pressing kisses up your neck. You groan, roll to the side, and wrap her closer.

“Hey, baby,” she murmurs. “How’d it go?” 

You somehow summon the mental energy to speak. “I’m all physics’d out. Talk electrical engineering to me.” Dina chuckles, rolls onto her back, and then dives deep into her final project for her circuits class.

You watch her eyes roam as she speaks, as her voice pitches with excitement and conviction. You imagine telling her that you love her. 

***

When classes end that spring, you have a free week until you have to fly out to Massachusetts. You stay in Dina’s apartment, help her clean up for the subletter, and drive her to the airport when she has to head out to California again.

The terminal is congested and chaotic with end-of-the-semester travelers, but you swallow your nerves and walk her to security. She holds your hand, runs a thumb over your knuckles, and pulls you close against her when you’ve gone as far as you can.

“Text me when you land?” you murmur, and she smiles, nuzzles her nose against yours.

“You might even get a whole phone call,” she sighs, and then she’s kissing you, soft and full. She pulls away first, and you chase her - one more, one more.

“See you in a month,” she murmurs, mouth warm against yours.

This time, you do tell her you love her.

***

You could get used to this - the soft light leeching under your eyelids as you wake up, a sweet-smelling breeze that drifts in through the window that Dina cracked open last night. You roll over, feeling for the other side of the bed - empty. You frown.

The house where Dina lives that summer is an old, creaking thing, usually occupied by three other roommates - “But you should have seen the place Eugene set me up with that first summer, oh _god_.” It’s the holiday weekend, though, and all of her roommates are gone to more party-appropriate parts of the city. 

You find her in the living room, bent over something on the heavy, ornate table, with a screwdriver in hand. She must hear you, because she doesn’t jump when you loop your arms around her waist - just leans back further into you.

“It’s Saturday, baby,” you murmur against her neck. “And it’s so _early_.” You press kisses against her skin, up to her hairline - she smells like oranges and a little like the whiskey the two of you shared last night. 

Dina murmurs to you, not unpleasantly - “You’re _distracting_ me” - and you don’t disagree. She lets you slip your hands under her oversized shirt - maybe it’s yours - and giggles as your fingers play along her bare legs, then the waistband of her underwear. 

“Come back to bed,” you breathe, pulling her into the curve of your body. She wiggles against you playfully, and you chuckle into her neck.

“Or,” she says, setting down her screwdriver and turning in your arms, “why not stay out here?”

Your eyebrows fly upwards as your gaze is pulled down, to where she’s popping the buttons of her (your) shirt open. 

Despite the early hour, the table is sun-warmed as she lays back on it. The sunlight dapples on the skin of her belly, her inner thighs. She wraps her bare legs around your waist and pulls you close, but you resist a little, pushing her knees up so you can look at her.

“Fucking gorgeous,” you sigh, running a palm down her body, between her breasts, down to where she’s wet for you. She whimpers when you bend down to lap at her, and again when you tell her how much you love watching yourself disappear inside of her. 

You keep the palm of your free hand pressed to her belly as you fuck her, and she comes so hard that the table shakes.

***

Because she’s Dina, and because you’ve been missing her with every fiber of your being, and because you’d like to believe that she can _feel_ how strongly you yearn for her - of course she surprises you in Massachusetts.

Your boss, who is probably too nice for her own good, gives you a long weekend - maybe she can read how lovesick you are in your expression, or notices how you keep glancing at your phone during the team’s weekly stand. 

You take it gladly - any extra minute to show Dina the city you love is worthwhile. 

The next morning, you’re panting by the time you reach the top of the staircase to your apartment, and fiddling for your keyring that you’ve shoved into the pocket of your loose athletic shorts. Dina comes up behind you, dragging herself up the stairs, with her hands pressed to the top of her head.

“Where’s that legendary - _oof_ \- legendary stamina at, huh?” she chides, gently hip-checking you, and you huff. 

“Okay, you gotta admit,” you say as you lean your shoulder into the door, pushing it open. “The river at sunrise was pretty cool.” You flash her a grin, one that she returns. 

Before she follows you inside, you reach for her and brush a sweat-drenched curl of her hair behind her ear. Her cheeks redden and she nuzzles your palm before you can pull away.

You toe off your running shoes and peek out around a corner, peer around the apartment for other signs of life. “They’re not home,” you say, reaching back for Dina’s hand. The hallway spills out into a well-lit living room, but you tug her to the bathroom.

The humidity is already starting to swell, even indoors, and you wince as you peel your clothes off. Dina gets her arms stuck over her head, entangled in her sports bra, and you laugh and help tug it off of her. Her hair sticks up in different directions, wild and frizzed from the sweat and heat. 

“Not too warm,” she calls over her shoulder, as you lean into the shower to adjust the water temperature. She fishes her phone from a pocket of her leggings, and as you sneak a bare toe under the stream of the shower, the sound of sleepy pseudo-jazz fills the bathroom.

“Didn’t know you were into this,” you chuckle as she slips in after you and tugs the tie out of her hair.

“When in Rome,” she says, shrugging and nudging you backwards until you’re fully under the showerhead. You sputter and laugh and pull her in close to you, so the whole slick front of her body is pressed against you. The water cuts cool streams down your back and your thighs, and pools in the dips and curves where Dina’s skin meets yours.

Making your voice heard so close to the showerhead is a chore, so you opt for inclining your head to nuzzle the side of her neck as you reach for a bar of soap. Dina giggles as you press firm, sudsy lines into her back, massaging just as much as washing. 

Once she’s soaped up - including the webbing between her fingers, and the tip of her nose, and the tops of her ears - you rub shampoo into her thick, wavy hair. Her eyes drift closed and she murmurs inaudible, contented sounds. You dig your fingers into her scalp and she groans, softens into your hands, rests her forehead on your clavicle. 

She loops her arms around your waist and stays pressed into the curve of your body, even as you turn around to help her rinse off. The sound of the shower fuzzes over all your senses, but you can still make out the soft lilt of Dina’s music. She sways in your arms and you rock with her, and then she tips her head up - kisses you chaste, soft, as you trace her jaw with a fingertip. 

You think to yourself, as she bats her eyelashes and smiles up at you, that you’d dance with her anywhere.

Later, you tap out a few final keystrokes on your laptop, minimize your development environment, and then lean back to watch the city pass by outside your window.

Your apartment sits on the third floor of a larger complex, looking out onto early-evening traffic below. You’re surrounded by tall buildings that shine, fiery and orange, in the setting sun; the low chatter and bright laughter of people walking below your building; the hum of cars idling through intersections. Even when it’s quieting down, the city bleeds bright energy - and you can’t help but feel rejuvenated.

Your phone buzzes - a text from Riley. _Guess who’s getting their graphic novel looked at by an agent next month!!!!_

You grin like a sunbeam. _Fuck yes_ , you write back. _I fucking knew you would_.

There’s a soft sound behind you, and you turn to see Dina splayed out on your bed - snoring softly, mouth slightly agape, book forgotten at her side. One of your t-shirts rides up over her belly. She’s beautiful, of course.

You pad over, perch on the mattress, and run one palm over her side. She twitches, eyes flickering open, catching the low light and alighting on you. She smiles. “Hi.”

You smile at the scratchiness in her voice. “Hey, babe.” You lean in and kiss her shoulder; she reaches for you and eases you down into the warmth of your blankets. It smells like your shampoo and like _Dina_ , a sweet musk that clings only to her. You nuzzle the top of her head, inhale.

You're stroking the skin of her back, under her shirt, when she speaks. 

“Do you like it here? In Boston.”

Her tone is nothing but soft, questioning, and you hum your assent into her hair.

“I can tell.” Her smile is audible.

You pull back slightly to look down at her, one side of your mouth curled up in a smile. “Oh yeah?”

“Mhmm,” Dina rumbles, stretching her arms above her head, languid and lazy as a cat. “You’re so... _relaxed_.” Her last word falls out of her mouth on a gust of air, and she tucks a strand of hair behind your ear.

You smile fully now. Her shirt has shifted even more, baring the skin underneath her collarbones, so you lean in to press a kiss there. And another, and another - chaste, just brushing over her skin with your mouth.

“Mmmm.” Dina’s hum tapers off into a groan now, as both of your hands settle on her hips. You draw circles there with your thumbs, sigh as she tries to rock up against you. “Baby…”

So slowly, you ease her shirt up her body, dropping kisses onto each new freckle you see. By the time you reach her breasts, she’s panting, arching up into your barely-there touches. “El, honey…”

“You want it off?” you murmur, and her nod - and the way she sucks her bottom lip into her mouth - is immediate. With utmost care, you ease the shirt over her head, toss it aside. Her underwear follows soon, and then she’s naked and wet and open under you. You see her pulse pound in her throat and you kiss it, smile at the feeling of her heat under your mouth.

“Can I make you feel good?” you sigh sweetly, even though she’s already got her hands tracing your back under your shirt.

“Please, baby,” she breathes, as she reaches up and gently removes your hair from its messy bun. Cards her fingers through it, soft and easy. “Please.”

You leave the window open. The humidity cools on a pleasant breeze, accompanied by the soft hum of traffic, and passerby’s chatter. You love the harmonies of the city at night, but this is your favorite: with Dina’s cries and moans rising in a soft melody above it all. 

And the sound of your name in her quavering voice, as she clings to you and convulses, hot and tight - that, right there, is everything.

***

The summer leaves you drunk on love and pleasure and junior year sneaks up on you, with its looming expectations and eerie silence. The tide goes out and you’re experienced enough to be afloat in the shallows, but now you’re waiting for the tsunami of senior year to hit.

There’s not much to move when you officially shack up with Dina. A couple of boxes, a PlayStation, an easel, your guitar. 

It’s still a celebration - she cobbles together a paper crown for you and invites a handful of your mutual friends over for a housewarming party. The party runs late, raucous and thrumming and loud, and you can’t believe that so many people are here just because of you. 

Early the next morning, you quietly slip out of your shared bed to go finish cleaning up - but first you gently brush a curled lock of hair behind Dina’s ear, smiling as she scoots closer to your warmth. You pull the blankets further over her sleeping form, pressing a kiss and a murmured “I love you” to her temple. 

On your one-year anniversary, you dust your guitar off and let old lessons fall back into your fingers. It’s worth it for her, to watch her smile, watch her eyes soften. You play old love songs, then the bare contours of original melodies you’ve been trying to finish for years. You want to feel embarrassed at how incomplete they are, but Dina just smiles softly like she’s uncovered a precious secret. 

“They’re beautiful,” she sighs, pressing kisses along your knuckles.

Later, she’s riding you with a fervor, sweet gasps and moans pouring from her mouth as you lick along her neck, taste her exertion - and then your phone, which you’ve barely looked at all day, buzzes on the bedside table like a loud, intrusive insect -

“Wha-?” Dina gasps, twisting, but you keep your hands on her rocking hips, encouraging -

“Let it ring, baby,” you husk into her neck, dragging your teeth against her. Her nails dig into your upper back then she keens and you smile, lean further into her undulating body -

“Be loud,” you sigh, focusing on how hot her skin is under your hands, how her brows pinch together as she chases her pleasure, undone and divine. “Be loud, sweet girl, let me hear you -”

After some time, you murmur to her - “Come for me” - and she falls apart in your lap, twitching and crying out. You almost come with her, swept up in the contractions of her body, in all her shivering, gasping pleasure, in the way your name falls from her lips -

You stop yourself, though, so you can wring everything out of her. She sways in your arms and relaxes into you, twitching with her aftershocks, mumbling nonsense against your skin. You don’t know how long you stay there like that, feeling how your skin sticks to hers...

Eventually, you wrap her up and ease her down into the mattress, gently slipping out of her and fighting with the harness on your hips with one hand. 

She reaches for you again once you’ve sat up, but you push her away gently. Your heart aches as you do so. “One minute,” you murmur, pressing a kiss to her bare shoulder. You grab a shirt and your phone and slip quietly out of the bedroom, into the darkened hallway.

You unlock your phone, and stare.

You have seventeen missed calls, all from the same number. A flurry of text messages, most all caps from what you see as you scroll - loud and obtrusive and frightened.

Like it’s fated, the phone begins to ring again, and your heart jumps into your throat. You glance back at the bedroom, then slip further down the hallway. 

Your hands are shaking. It takes you two tries to swipe your thumb smoothly enough to pick up the call. You hold the phone up to your ear.

“Hello?”

***

Dina knocks on your door just as you’re fishing a tupperware of day-old spaghetti out of the microwave. You almost burn your hand, curse, and dig around for two clean plates. By the time she knocks again, you’ve got food set out on the little table in your kitchen-cum-living-room. 

You run an appraising eye over the setup - the spaghetti still holds the cube shape from the tupperware, and you swirl a fork through it, trying to give it a more natural shape. All you do is tear through the noodles with the utensil.

Dina answers with a smile and a hug. She lets go quickly, and starts murmuring complimentary words for your apartment. 

It all happens so quickly, continuous reminders that the things you love are not within your control. She asks you about your friends, books you’re reading, classes you’ve been taking.

But it’s different. It’s stilted. She picks at her pasta, barely eats anything - and sure, you’re not a great cook, but Dina’s _always_ had an appetite. For food, and for more. 

She looks drawn, clammy, a sheen of sweat shining along her neck - and finally, you put your fork down. “Dina?”

She glances up, and her eyes are huge. Pained. Your stomach drops.

“Is everything okay?”

She sets down her fork, leaves her hand on the table. Inhales, as if to speak. Stops. Tries again.

You reach for her, and she doesn’t pull away. Her hand shakes in yours. When you squeeze, she squeezes back.

When she speaks, her voice is barely above a whisper, edging between true and imagined.

“I think I’m pregnant.”


End file.
